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Before the mural paintings in the church of St. Nicholas of the former Bucovăț monastery (c. 1574), no traces were found of the existence of a Kastorian artistic influence in Wallachia. Carmen- Laura Dumitrescu was the first to point out the Kastorian iconographic and stylistic influences at Bucovăț. The present study proposes an investigation of the iconography and style of the paintings of Bucovăț, indicating several similarities with the murals in the church of St. Demetrius in Palatitsia (1570), the work of Nicholas of Linotopi and his team, descendants of the painting traditions of the Kastoria and Ohrid workshops. A contemporary influence originating in Serbia can also be seen at Bucovăț, pointing to the area of the newly restored Patriarchate of Peć (1557) as a place where the main painter, a Greek, may have had contacts. Our research extends to the subsequent Wallachian painted churches: the church of the Annunciation in Pitești (1564-1568 or post 1594), the church of the Căluiu monastery (1594), the Princely church in Târgoviște (late 16th cent.), the church of Sts. Archangels in Ruda-Bârsești (1624). The study concludes that a Kastorian influence coming probably via the revitalized sites of the Archdiocese of Ohrid and the Patriarchate of Peć entered Wallachia after the mid-16th century and blended into the iconography and the style of the local painters, being in part responsible for the peculiar iconographic and stylistic trends of the late 16th-century Wallachian painting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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